Nick Diaz vs GSP just unhappened

It all started on Wednesday with some press conference in Canada. Nick no-showed that one and while many fans giggled and said “Oh that wacky Nick Diaz”, the owners of the billion dollar sports company weren’t quite so amused.

Today there was another press conference, and once again Nick Diaz elected not to show up. So instead of GSP pulling double duty again, Dana White had a 40 minute conversation with the press that went “How crazy is it that Nick Diaz didn’t show up?” Take it away, Dana:

We haven’t heard from him. I haven’t talked to him again he hasn’t returned my call. Many of you who follow the sport know I’ve had my recervations about Nick Diaz for a long time now. And you’ve heard me use the term ‘Play the game.’ All I asked this kid to do was play the game this much.

And when we brought him in to sign this fight with Georges St Pierre, we sat down in my office and I said “Let me tell you what, kid. If you add up all the purses you’ve ever made in your entere career, you’re going to make so much more money than that in this fight. This fight’s gonna be the biggest fight of your life. Not only are you gonna make all this money but you’re going to have the opportunity to fight Georges St Pierre and win the welterweight title. BUT I NEED you to do certain things. There are certiain things you have to do you have to promote this fight. You have to show up for press conferences, you can’t start fights at fights.”

And the list goes on and on of things that I told Nick that we need from him. Nick looked me right in my face and lied to me and he said he would do it.

And then he had the video you see below played to the crowd:

So … yeah. No more GSP vs Nick Diaz. Boo-urns. There’s a few ways to look at this. One is from the personal fan perspective where most of us don’t really give that much of a shit about press conferences. GSP vs Nick Diaz still sounds as awesome as it did when it was first announced and I was ready to put down my 50 bucks even with Nick half-assing promotion like he always does.

He screwed up. He got what he deserved. That’s not me saying this. That’s his people saying this. Diaz disappointed his closest friends, his allies, his teammates. These are the people he always speaks so glowingly about. They’re the ones, he says, that matter most. Hey Nick, they’re the ones that matter most! And yet here you are, failing on so many levels to live up to the promises you made.

Forget for a moment about doing what your promoter required of you, even if it is the most powerful entity in the sport that decided to pay you a lot of money and offer an unprecedented opportunity. But what about the guys in the room? The Cesar Gracie family? Oh, how Diaz disappointed them.

And what of the fans who were so vocal in their desire to see Diaz fight St. Pierre in the UFC? They’re as responsible for making the fight as Gracie was with his masterful contractual parlor tricks. How are they supposed to feel?

All of that energy and time and money. Gone without a return because Nick Diaz couldn’t be bothered to get to Toronto and Las Vegas and actually earn his keep.

All I know is that another awesome fight just got goddamned canceled, and that sucks.

I wish when Diaz first met with Dana he said, “Hey, I have crippling anxiety in social situations, so unless you let me show up to the press conferences with my 6 foot bong, how about you pay me a little less to do nothing but show up for the fight and you can play up the fact that I’m such a mysterious dude who doesn’t like to talk to people in public.” That way, there’d be no reason to expect him there and he’d still be scheduled to take on GSP. My hype-titude for this fight wasn’t related to what happens at the press conferences.

thingvolds

they say he got denied at the airport for some reason. shoulda called blaf and had the private jet sent over. or not. hes gonna do what he wants to do. sucks for us

scissors61

Yeah yeah yeah, denied at the airport my ass.

Redping

man, dude is one of my favourite fighters but definitely lost some respect. why make a video whining about not getting paid if all you had to do was show up for free flights to sit in the chair, even being unsociable wouldn’t relaly matter so long as he was there. I guess you can’t trust stoners to show up anywhere

Garp

Redping – ditto re: respect lost, whining video.
Boxing career? Really? What boxers in his weight class make the kind of coin he was getting for this fight? And how many YEARS of stringing together questionable decisions against Mexican journeymen would he have to string together to GET there?

Sodomize Intolerance

Much better fight. We all knew what Diaz was bringing to the table: shitty slap punches. If there was finally a team to dismantle his striking and not just strike however the fuck they want to strike, it’s Team Jackson. GSP would fucking murder Diaz via gameplan and we would probably hate him once again for it.

The Condit fight is another champion vs champion fight (WEC rather than SF) and puts GSP up against a guy who will finish or be finished. I’m thinking Condit will make him exciting again. GSP has some mojo (see: Shields), but not Anderson levels of mojo (see: every fight after Henderson). If Carlos feels the mojo, this will be another shitty fight. If Carlos brings it, this is going to be a hell of a match.

steve4192

The airport excuse is obvious bullshit.

Stockton is only 500 miles from Vegas. He could have driven there in a pinch. Take off after breakfast at 8am and be in Vegas by 4pm easy-peasy.

Hell, Cesar even offered to be his chauffeur and do the driving for him.

Too bad the crazy that makes him so fun to watch doesn’t have an off switch and he fucked himself out of the biggest opportunity of his career.

It was too good to be true dammit.

Redping

i know its fun to hate but dude is still one of the most entertaining fighters of all time. beating the shit out of Gomi on weed and standing right in the pocket with power strikers picking them apart with quick-fire punches, sets him apart from the ‘legends’ of his division – GSP, matt hughes, other humpers.

i don’t know what fight ‘sodomise intolerance’ was watching where he uses ‘shitty slap punches’ but maybe he’s frank shamrock’s 1 fan or something ? I rememb er frank saying ‘they don’t hurt, they just CONFUSE you and you go down somehow’. I mean what a moron, Diaz literally fights people with boss mode on and even when he loses he makes them look like idiots for laying on him so much and not fighting.

he’s a child but an awesome fighter with some of the slickest jits in the business. Hopefully he can get his shit together and apologise properly to dana and get onto a main card, he deserves a slot

agentsmith

So I guess the question is now whether he’ll get another shot at GSP, or another top UFC fighter instead, or sent back to Strikeforce, or just fired outright.

lukustra

To be completely honest I dont think Condit has a shot in hell. Hes known to have ABYSMAL takedown defense. Hes been taken down, and held down by a whos who in MMA. Great striking and gnp, but dude can’t stay off his back. Gonna be a long fight against the ultimate hugger.

lukustra

This also screws the BJ vs Condit fight so it not only ruins one great fight, but 2. Hopefully instead of cutting Diaz they give him BJ. Chances are, thats not happening.

Komodo

What a waste.

Garp

Hopefully, they let Diaz sit in contract limbo as long as they possibly can.

And then cut him.

CAP

Fucking fool stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

G Funk

He’s dumb but White is an egomaniac pulling his king power card for not showing up to a fucking press conference. Give me a fucking break. Put your personal power trippin ego in the back seat for a min. Dana and make the right BUSINESS MOVE asshole.

mamoru

That’s what he did, G.
I know it’s really hard, because Nick is nowhere near as good as GSP at any facet of MMA except submissions, but imagine that batshit insane motherfucker as the champion. No-showing pressers, getting fights overturned for being high, starting fights in hospitals, coming in overweight and blaming it on swallowing sea water,etc. The man is the king of retards, and he would fuck them bad sooner or later.

And his whole victim act in his youtube video is cute and all, but he’s got no one to blame but himself, it’s not like anyone forced him to run away from his team, miss three separate flights and then swearing to make the next one and lying about it.

I’ve called him the dumbest guy in mma plenty of times, but I think he might actually be the dumbest guy in sports.

DJ ThunderElbows

I’ve called him the dumbest guy in mma plenty of times, but I think he might actually be the dumbest guy in sports.

Phil Baroni resents that remark.

steve4192

Baroni is a reasonably smart guy. He has a college degree, never burned bridges with potential employers, was always reliable to meet his obligations, and has crafted a ‘character’ (the NYBA) that has kept him in demand despite the fact that he isn’t very good.

He’s done some dumb shit in the heat of the moment (slapping Landless and Hunt for instance), but he has never done anything to systematically hurt his career or earnings potential.

agentsmith

Baroni is a reasonably smart guy. He has a college degree,

…in Guidology?

SST

DW fucks up the SF heavyweight grand prix and now fucks up a SF/UFC unification match that didn’t need to be promoted in the first place.

G Funk

Mamaru, Diaz has done retarded shit in the past but has generally been a good boy during his SF championship reign. He doesn’t pull out of fights and is exciting to watch. Press conferences? Who other than the lamest losers who don’t have a life actually watch and give a fuck about ‘em. Nothing ever comes out of them news worthy sooo… A lot of money will be lost over this personal decision.

agentsmith

^ The fans of other sports don’t generally watch press conferences either. But if a pro player no-showed on two pressers in a row that were specifically promoting him, you think he wouldn’t catch shit from his boss? Come on now.

CAP

Guys in the NFL get fined all the time for not showing up at pressers. I get that they don’t add much to the actual fight but dude straight up lied to the boss’s face. That might have worked with Scott Coker but not the son of satan.

DJ ThunderElbows

The pressers are for the media to cover and draw in the casual fans. You cats are looking at this from a hardcore perspective – which is the perspective that gets UFC RIO 250k buys. GSP’s name combined with Diaz tidbits (I hate this shit/I just wanna fight/I mean, y’know, cuz yeah, like y’know, I mean … yeah) from the pressers would’ve generated a lotta money. Plus he straight lied to his bosses face about doing the promo work.

I dunno if you guys are straight-up fitches, or – like me – you’re irked we’re not getting the fight over this kinda shit. But if Nick wasn’t gonna do promo work, he shouldn’t have signed a contract under those terms.

I know I’m tired of hearing about this shit already, but drawn to it because I can’t believe he’d fuck this up.

frickshun

I didn’t buy UFC Rio b/c I thought it was a dumb animated flick about birds. THAT WAS A FIGHT CARD?! FUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!

DJ ThunderElbows

I didn’t buy UFC Rio b/c I thought it was a dumb animated flick about birds.

THIS is why they can’t fucking count on the fucking hardcores!

Monstrosity

stop blaming DW for this. he had nothing to do with Nick Diaz not showing up to the pressers. And what is DW supposed to do about this? yeah normal fans don’t care about pressers but if he lets Nick do this shit then any fighter who doesn’t feel like it is suddenly going to just not show up as well, cause Nick did it.

If this fight getting cancelled pisses you off. then put that anger where it belongs… in your mother’s asshole. errr i mean Nick Diaz’s asshole errr nevermind.

And they’re not generating chit with press conferences. Long, frequent ad campaigns showing the guys fucking shit up and standing in the mean mug stance with glistening liquid dripping down their hard, toned delicious bodies is what gets casuals, unknowns and hardcores into fights.

iamphoenix

too tired to photoshop joan butters in that empty space. so just imaginaze him there alright, fuck. laugh too you better fucking lol. invisible photoshop of joan butters in the empty space below…

mamoru

G, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have cancelled the fight if it was just any main card fight. But this is a potential champion showing them very clearly that he won’t cooperate and that he can’t be trusted to do the shit he’s signed a contract to do. How do you put a person like that in a position to potentially hold a belt? It’d be a retarded thing to do.